by B J Bourg
Susan wore a thin night shirt that extended down to the tops of her strong and tanned legs. She leapt from the sofa when I pushed through the door and Coco stirred just a little, but then settled back to her dreams. Susan kissed me and apologized for putting Grace down.
“She fought her ass off trying to stay awake for you,” she said as she followed me up the stairs, “but her little head kept falling over, so I put her to bed.”
“Oh, she was trying to stay awake for me, right?” I smiled when Susan nodded innocently. “She doesn’t even know who I am at this point in her life. To her, I’m just some large figure who throws her up in the air, brings her food every now and then, and tickles her until she screams.”
“What are you talking about? She knows who you are.”
“Oh, does she?” I asked as I stripped off my shirt and turned on the hot water faucet in the shower. “Tell me, what’s your earliest memory?”
“Well, I remember seeing this bright light and then a doctor called out that it was a girl.” She smiled triumphantly and we both laughed. Growing serious, she thought about it, and then shrugged. “I’m not sure about my earliest memory. I guess it goes back to when I was about four.”
“Exactly.” I’d stripped down to my boxers and leaned against the wall to make my point. “According to my birth certificate, I’m going to be thirty-five in four months, but I’m really only around thirty.”
“Oh, yeah?” Susan folded her arms in a “this is going to be good” manner and begged me to explain.
“Since I have no memory of the first four years of my life and I was basically just running around bumping into walls and peeing on myself, then those years shouldn’t count against me. I mean, I didn’t really start living life until I went to kindergarten and began meeting girls—”
Susan burst out laughing and playfully socked my shoulder, but the house phone began ringing before she could respond. Neither of us could find the cordless phone in time, but that didn’t bother the caller at all. Susan’s cell phone began ringing immediately, and mine chimed in right behind hers. She reached hers first and found out it was Lindsey calling to tell us the somber news that Jennifer’s mom had died suddenly at the hospital. A heart attack.
My first thought was for Chuck Duval. “If Chuck loses Jennifer, too,” I said softly, “he’s going to kill himself.”
CHAPTER 17
After a restless slumber, I woke to the sun beaming in through a crack in the curtain and Gracie slapping my face with a stuffed animal. It was an alligator and she was making a growling sound as she pounded it against my nose. Without warning, I suddenly reached for her and let out a growl of my own that brought a startled screech from her lips. She then broke out into fits of laughter.
“What time do you have to be at the coroner’s office?” Susan called from the bathroom, where she had just finished brushing her teeth.
“After Dr. Wong gets back from church, whatever time that is.” I rolled onto my back and hoisted Grace into the air. I held her suspended above me, pretending she was a helicopter. She laughed until she began drooling. I had to turn my head to avoid drowning in a stream of saliva that fell from her mouth.
“You’re going to make her puke,” Susan said, laughing with us. She plopped on the bed beside me and asked if I’d have breakfast with them before leaving for work. I accepted and handed Grace to Susan so I could head for the bathroom to get ready. Grace had stopped laughing and now had a stern look on her face as she fussed at me for walking out of the room. The indiscernible words flowed fervently from her lips, and her hands wagged as she tried to speak.
“Now, now,” Susan said, “let’s go check on Brother and Sister while Daddy gets ready for work.”
As I got dressed, my mind wandered to the day ahead and what it would bring. I knew that the only thing certain about law enforcement work was that there were no certainties in law enforcement work. While I was already pretty sure what the autopsies would tell us, I had no idea what would become of Jennifer. Nor did I know what other surprises awaited me.
When I was fully dressed, I lumbered down the stairs and found Grace in her highchair and Susan in the corner of the kitchen putting food in two large dog bowls. I glanced around. “Where are the dogs?”
“I saw Achilles heading to the back earlier, and Coco was hot on his heels.”
I was glad the two dogs were getting along. I moved to a window and glanced toward the back of Paradise Place, which was the private street along which Susan and I had made our home. Now that the sugarcane fields had been harvested and the new plants were in their germination phase, I could see clear to the back of the street where the women’s shelter stood eerily in the fog that cloaked our property. There were no women in the shelter at the moment. That was good news, because it meant no one in our area had been beaten recently. Susan and I lived for the day when women’s shelters would no longer be needed, but until that time, we would continue to harbor women and teach them self-defense in Susan’s Spartan gym and how to use a firearm at the firing range we’d set up at the back of the property.
After turning away from the window, I helped Susan finish breakfast and then sat across from her. Grace was on my left and I played with her while we ate breakfast.
“What do you think will become of Jennifer?” Susan asked softly, toying with the pancake on her plate. “Do you think she’ll pull through?”
I could tell Susan was feeling guilty over the confrontation she’d had with Jennifer last year, so I told her she had nothing about which to feel bad. “She did what she did and you put her in her place.” I said it with certainty. “A year ago, there was no way any of us could’ve predicted what happened Friday. It came without warning—as far as I can tell. If we’re able to access her phone, maybe we can find some communication between her and Carl that might explain the motive for Carl attacking her. Until then, this might all remain a mystery.”
“Well, I still feel bad for her.”
I nodded and my thoughts turned back to Chuck. As I sat there feeling sorry for him, I remembered his words of wisdom about Grace: “You make damn sure you drop what you’re doing and talk to her when she has something to say.”
I frowned as I turned to Grace, who had a lot to say at the moment. Only God knew what she was talking about, but she was mumbling on about something. Based on the expression on her little face, she was serious about it. I forced Chuck Duval, the autopsies, and the entire case from my mind as I focused entirely on Grace.
“Are you serious, Gracie?” I asked, leaning in close. “I can’t believe Mommy would do something like that.”
Susan feigned exasperation. “Do what?”
“It’s a secret. She made me promise not to say a word, so I won’t.”
We laughed and I gave my small family my undivided attention as I finished my breakfast. When I walked outside to head for the coroner’s office, I felt as though I was leaving part of me behind, and I realized that’s exactly what I was doing. I was leaving the best parts of me behind, and I couldn’t wait to get back to them.
After firing up my Tahoe, I sat and waited for a minute, knowing that wherever he was on the property, Achilles would hear the engine and come running. I was right. Down the road, coming from the area of the women’s shelter, I could see a black blur racing toward me. He stretched and reached as far as he could with his front legs, pushing and pulling himself closer to me at breakneck speed. Directly behind him, running as hard as she could, Coco was desperately trying to keep up. Their tongues dangled from their mouths and seemed to drag the ground beside them.
I dropped from my vehicle and waited for them to reach me. Achilles came to a thunderous halt inches from me and plopped to a seated position—a move as practiced as his breathing—and waited eagerly for me to reward him with a rough scratching of his head. Coco, on the other hand, had been following blindly behind Achilles and was caught by surprise when he stopped so suddenly. She tried to react in time, but couldn’t.
She crashed into the back of Achilles, who barely felt the impact, and tumbled into my left knee, bending it slightly backward and sending a wave of pain up my leg.
I winced and grabbed onto the front of my Tahoe to keep from falling. Coco righted herself and sidled up beside Achilles and waited eagerly with him, unaware that she’d almost snapped my knee in half.
I put my weight gingerly on my left leg and groaned when the pain persisted. I could walk, but with some effort and I could almost feel my knee swelling. I bent carefully and spent time with both of them before leaving for the coroner’s office. Achilles wasn’t used to sharing my attention, but he didn’t seem to mind. If I didn’t know better, he was falling in love with Coco. In fact, I was sure he looked at Coco the same way I looked at Susan.
I frowned as I drove away. It would be a shame if we couldn’t keep Coco. Two days ago, Achilles didn’t even know Coco existed. His life was complete and he was as happy as he could be. He didn’t know what he was missing out on. But now that he had met her, he was forever changed. If she went away, things would never go back to the way they were before he met her. He would now know what he was missing out on and it would break his heart.
I could relate. I couldn’t imagine my life without Susan or our eighteen-pound bundle of red-headed joy. That something so small could have such a huge impact on me was amazing. It gave my life greater meaning. A purpose. A calling higher than my law enforcement career. I was a dad. And by God, I was going to follow Chuck Duval’s advice and be a damned good one. I would not be that guy in Cat’s in the Cradle.
CHAPTER 18
I got to the coroner’s office just as Dr. Wong was pulling up. After following her inside, I helped her open up the place. Her assistant was late, so I suited up and performed the task of removing Carl’s mother-in-law’s body from the cooler where she had been resting.
I continued helping with the body until the assistant arrived, changing gloves each time I needed to pick up my camera and take photographs. Other than the placement of the rounds, all of the similarities from the other victims were present.
After sewing the woman up, Dr. Wong ordered her assistant to pull out Carl Duval’s body. I watched as they stripped him of his clothes and began washing the blood from his body, beginning with his head. Once the dried blood had been washed away—and thanks to the bright light over the morgue table—it was clear to see that the shotgun had been placed against the outside of his lips. The slug had punched out all of his front teeth, upper and lower.
I frowned, asked the assistant to hold Carl’s head so I could take a picture. “This is a first,” I mumbled.
“What’s a first?” Dr. Wong asked.
I pointed to the hole in his mouth. “Other than swallowing a barrel, I’ve seen people press shotguns or rifles to their foreheads or under their chins, but never to the outside of their mouths. It just doesn’t make sense.”
Dr. Wong shrugged. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my many years of doing this, it’s that once I think I’ve seen it all, something comes along and surprises me.”
I only nodded, watched as the assistant continued cleaning the body. Once he’d washed the blood from Carl’s body, I felt my heart do a back flip in my chest. “Hold on a minute.”
Dr. Wong took an impatient breath. While I knew she would do a thorough job on Carl’s autopsy, I also knew she cared much less about the man than she did about the children and women.
I asked the assistant to stand aside. I then pointed to two sections of Carl’s body. Dr. Wong sidled up beside me to take a closer look. She gasped. “These are antemortem.”
I nodded my head vigorously as I studied Carl’s concaved face. The man suddenly took on a new appearance. “We need to wrap this up so I can go talk to Mr. Duval. He needs to know what’s going on right away. It’ll help refocus his mind—might even save his life.”
“Save his life?” Dr. Wong raised an eyebrow.
“Yeah, his wife died last night. If his daughter dies, I’m afraid he’ll end his life. This might distract him enough to help him get through this difficult time.”
Without saying another word about it, Dr. Wong threw herself into the autopsy with great interest. I took meticulous notes and shot what photographs I needed. Once she was done and had rendered her official findings, I hurried out to the parking lot and loaded my gear into the back of my Tahoe. It was already noon and I was hungry, but I needed to get to the hospital as soon as I could. Chuck deserved to know the truth, and he needed to know right away.
As I sped to Chateau General, I called Susan and told her what I’d learned. She was speechless at first, but then expressed sincere shock. Once we finished talking shop, she put Grace on the phone and I had a one-sided conversation with her until I reached the parking lot of the hospital. She didn’t understand what I said when I told her to give the phone back to Mommy, so I was forced to end the call without saying goodbye to Susan.
It was seventy-eight degrees and overcast outside, with possible storms forecast for later in the day. As I stepped out of my SUV, I had no clue the gloomy conditions were even darker inside the hospital, but I didn’t have to wait long to figure it out.
There were a dozen officers standing out in the main waiting room. Some were in uniform, others in plain clothes, but all of them were from La Mort. I recognized a few faces from my days working in the city, but none of them saw me walk by. They were all huddled at the far corner of the room and were focused intently on the conversation they were having. I was sure it had to do with Chuck losing his wife and I again found myself feeling bad for the man. I did take solace in knowing he had an extended family of good law enforcement officers who would know how to guide him through what I knew would be the worst days of his life.
I made my way up to the intensive care unit and asked the charge nurse if I could be shown to Jennifer’s room. There was a graven expression on her face as she stood slowly to her feet and led me down the corridor. She stopped when we reached one of the rooms, hesitating with her hand on the knob. It was only then that she spoke.
“Mr. Duval is with her.”
I nodded my thanks and waited as she opened the door. When she stepped back, I slipped inside and saw Chuck on his knees beside the bed. His head was in Jennifer’s lap and I guessed he was praying. The door clanked softly shut behind me, but Chuck never looked up.
I moved closer to the bed, not knowing if I should interrupt the man. If he was praying, he was doing so silently, because I didn’t hear a sound from the bed. My gaze moved from Chuck’s back to Jennifer’s face. I frowned deeply at the sight. One side of her head was covered in heavy bandages. Her eyes were closed and her complexion a grayish tint. One side of a clear tube extended from her mouth and was taped in place against the side of her face. The other end of the tube was attached to a machine…
It took a long and agonizing moment for my brain to comprehend what I was seeing. When realization spread over me, my knees grew weak and I had to step back and reach for the wall to steady myself. The life-rendering machine attached to Jennifer’s body was still. No beeping noises, no flashing lights. It had been turned off. I studied her chest closely for confirmation, rubbed my eyes to be sure they weren’t deceiving me. They weren’t. It was true. Jennifer Duval was gone. She was dead.
CHAPTER 19
Two hours later…
Susan was still there, and so was Baylor. Melvin had come to the hospital earlier and left, as had Amy and Takecia. We’d all paid our respects to Chuck and the members of the La Mort Police Department who were present, and it was now time for everyone to go back to their respective duties. Two detectives from La Mort were to stay behind with Chuck, and Susan was going to remain with me for my meeting with the elder Duval. She had directed Baylor to wait out in the parking lot and escort the coroner’s investigators in when they arrived.
“Mr. Duval,” I said softly, resting a hand on his shoulder. He didn’t flinch. When I’d walked in long ago, he h
ad been kneeling beside Jennifer’s bed. He now sat in a chair, but it was in the same spot he’d been kneeling and he still had his head resting on her lap. He had looked up only once, and that was when he moved to the chair. In that brief moment, our eyes had locked and I had looked into the eyes of a dead man. The bright flame that can usually be observed in a living pair of eyes was gone. In its place was a dull blackness that appeared unseeing. Once he had put his head down in Jennifer’s lap once more, he never looked back up. I continued talking anyway. “I need to share with you some important details of the case. I think you’ll want to hear it.”
There was no movement other than the subtle lift of his back as he took a breath. In fact, his breathing was so subtle that I thought it had stopped a few times, but then I would see his shirt rise just a little and I knew he was still with us.
“I attended the autopsies earlier today. I made an important observation when they processed Carl’s body.” I paused for a long moment, trying to detect some sort of reaction from him, but there was none. “When I examined his arms, I found that there were ligature marks on his wrists. They were the same size and consistency as the ligature marks on Annie and the kids and the mother-in-law.”
Chuck sucked in some air and froze in place, holding his breath. He understood the implications of what I’d said, but I spelled it out for him just in case his reasoning had been clouded by Jennifer’s passing.
“Carl was bound with zip ties before he was shot in the head. It means he was murdered along with his family. This was not a murder-suicide. Your son is not a killer.”